David Shannon is to replace Ramin Karimloo in arguably the West End’s most iconic role, the mask-wearing, fear-inducing Phantom Of The Opera.
Shannon takes on the role of the famous murderer from 9 November, with Karimloo, who is to play the Phantom again next year in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel Love Never Dies, bowing out on 7 November.
Shannon joins current cast members Gina Beck, Simon Bailey, Barry James, Gareth Snook and Rohan Tickell. Other new faces to The Phantom Of The Opera cast include Rebecca Lock, Nicky Adams, Emma Harris and Tabitha Webb.
Shannon is a regular performer on the London stage. He has recently completed a run as Les Misérables’s prisoner-turned-mayor Jean Valjean and previously appeared in Miss Saigon, Whistle Down The Wind, Cats, Martin Guerre and The Beautiful Game, for which he received a Laurence Olivier Award nomination.
Lock, who plays operatic diva Carlotta, also appeared in Martin Guerre and Cats, as well as Mary Poppins and, most recently, performed alongside London’s most potty-mouthed puppets in Avenue Q.
Adams, who joins as Madame Giry, has credits including Les Misérables and The Woman In White, Harris (Meg Giry) appeared in the recent London productions of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Evita, and Webb, who alternates in the role of Christine with Gina Beck, sang alongside Josh Groban and Idina Menzel in Chess In Concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
The Phantom Of The Opera is one of the West End’s most successful productions ever. Worldwide it has won over 50 major theatre awards including three Laurence Olivier Awards.
Next year, more than two decades after the show first opened, the tale of an obsessive genius who haunts the Paris opera house will be joined in London by a follow up show, Love Never Dies, which picks up the story of the Phantom 10 years later, when the murderous maestro has moved to New York’s Coney Island.
MA